Within the consumer goods industry, consumer goods companies (e.g., product manufacturers, distributors, etc.) distribute products to various customers down the line (e.g., distributors, wholesale establishments, retail establishments, etc.). Distribution may often occur on an ongoing basis. To make distribution possible, a marketing administrator typically creates product distribution lists that control which of a company's products are available for distribution to various customer accounts.
Most consumer goods companies are organized using a hierarchical structure that is typically based on the company's channels of distribution. Thus, consumer goods companies often have the problem of managing complex authorized product distribution lists containing hundreds of products down the account hierarchy while keeping track of the supplying accounts. Currently this is a tedious and labor-intensive process.
A consumer goods company's channels of distribution are typically defined as either direct or indirect. With direct distribution, a key account, sometimes the company's own distribution center, is the sole intermediary between the product origination source and the retail outlets. With indirect distribution, there is another intermediary, such as a third-party distributor, between the key account and the retail outlets. This intermediary is sometimes called an indirect account.
A company using an indirect distribution scheme typically authorizes its products for retail distributions at the key account, indirect account and retail outlet levels. This method is often referred to as retail product authorization. Using this method, consumer goods companies often build distribution lists from a set of products available to the indirect account. This set of products is typically a subset of the products from the key account distribution list.
It would be desirable to have a facility to more effectively manage distribution and the generation of product distribution lists.